Debate over whether 2 or 3 Discuss Manipur
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Two or three ? Technicalities and the legalities aside, what stands true is, the situation in Manipur needs to be discussed at the highest forum and what could be higher than the floor of the Assembly ? This is besides Parliament and it is this point that should be read into the demand raised by the Congress to convene the Winter session of the Assembly. The situation demands it and while the BJP may be tech- nically right in asserting that three sessions is not a compulsion, the spirit behind the call for the Winter session should be understood. Moreover situation demands that this is not the time to look for one upmanship. So even as the Congress and BJP continued to verbally slug it out over two or three, the offensives from well armed Kuki militants continued unabated at Sanasabi, Shanti-khongbal and Shabungkhok, all Meitei foothill settlements in Imphal East adjoining Kangpokpi district. Three persons, including a reporter of an Imphal based news channel have been injured in the hail of bullets and explosives rained down by the Kuki militants since December 25 and keeping in line with the false narratives that have characterised the ongoing clash, the Kangpokpi based Committee on Tribal Unity (CoTU) has squarely pointed its fingers at armed Meitei groups of going on the offensive against Kuki villagers and capped this off with a 12 hour shutdown call at Kangpokpi district. The shutdown call is a continuation of the victim story that has been weaved so dexterously from the evening of May 3, 2023 and with publications based in other parts of the country more than willing to highlight the ‘victim story’, one can be rest assured that this would be given prime coverage. The ongoing clash is already into its 19th month and it is perplexing to see that New Delhi and Imphal still do not seem to have come anywhere near understanding how May 3, 2023 came about. As former Chief Secretary of Manipur, Oinam Nabakishore has so succinctly pointed out in a write up, which is being carried alongside this commentary today, there could be many reasons for the Kukis to come out so aggressively such as the crackdown on poppy cultivation under the War on Drugs campaign, the eviction drive launched in a Protected Forest, the decision of the State Government to withdraw from the Suspension of Operation pact with two outfits, the Zomi Revolutionary Army and the Kuki National Army etc. The series of mayhem unleashed at Churachandpur district headquarters in the days running into May 3, 2023 is the backrop against which the Tribal Solidarity March organised by the All Tribal Students’ Union, Manipur was staged.
The Sangai Express has one more than one occasion pointed out that it could not have been the order of the High Court of Manipur which prompted the Tribal Solidarity March, for it is not within the domain of the Judiciary to include a community in the ST list. No Court can order the Government to include a community in the ST list and the High Court of Manipur knows this. The instruction was to just send the ethnographic and socio-economic report of the Meiteis as sought by the Union Tribal Affairs Ministry to study the possibility of including the Meiteis in the ST list. A report which the Tribal Affairs Ministry had sought back in 2013. It was on a lie that the Tribal Solidarity March was staged and looking at how thing have unfolded in the last 19 months, it was a well planned move. And if the protest was against the directive of the High Court of Manipur as well as the different drives launched by the State Government such as the War on Drugs, the eviction from Protected Forest etc, then why should a community be targeted ? The Meiteis too have protested against the policies and programmes of the Government and so too have the Nagas. But nowhere have the protests targeted any specific community. Trouble started at Torbung and Chura-chandpur on May 3, 2023 and Imphal and the valley areas reacted only late in the evening and this is underlined by the fact that on the same day, in the evening, a Kuki gentleman, a former MLA had dropped in at the office of The Sangai Express. This is not the time to debate over 2 or 3 sessions but to discuss the burning issue and the Assembly is the best place to do that.
The Sangai Express has one more than one occasion pointed out that it could not have been the order of the High Court of Manipur which prompted the Tribal Solidarity March, for it is not within the domain of the Judiciary to include a community in the ST list. No Court can order the Government to include a community in the ST list and the High Court of Manipur knows this. The instruction was to just send the ethnographic and socio-economic report of the Meiteis as sought by the Union Tribal Affairs Ministry to study the possibility of including the Meiteis in the ST list. A report which the Tribal Affairs Ministry had sought back in 2013. It was on a lie that the Tribal Solidarity March was staged and looking at how thing have unfolded in the last 19 months, it was a well planned move. And if the protest was against the directive of the High Court of Manipur as well as the different drives launched by the State Government such as the War on Drugs, the eviction from Protected Forest etc, then why should a community be targeted ? The Meiteis too have protested against the policies and programmes of the Government and so too have the Nagas. But nowhere have the protests targeted any specific community. Trouble started at Torbung and Chura-chandpur on May 3, 2023 and Imphal and the valley areas reacted only late in the evening and this is underlined by the fact that on the same day, in the evening, a Kuki gentleman, a former MLA had dropped in at the office of The Sangai Express. This is not the time to debate over 2 or 3 sessions but to discuss the burning issue and the Assembly is the best place to do that.